


Coming Out

by regionalatbest



Category: Amazingphil - Fandom, Danisnotonfire - Fandom, Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: M/M, Phan - Freeform, Phandom - Freeform, YouTube
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 12:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionalatbest/pseuds/regionalatbest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Phil come out</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out

Dan had always known that they were going to come out eventually, that they wouldn’t always keep their relationship behind closed doors and quick glances. He knew that one day they would be able to sit so close they were touching and hold hands or even kiss and it wouldn’t be surprising–it might even be expected. Dan knew all of this and thought about it often, about how the fans would react and how they would do it, if it would be on his channel or Phil’s–or if they would make another channel all together–and how they would go about telling people. Dan thought about this a lot but it still didn’t prepare him for the real thing.

In March of 2013 they finally decided to come out. They decide that it’s been three and a half years and that there wasn’t really any reason to keep their relationship to themselves any longer. They decide on it when they’re packing for Playlist Live and agree to wait until afterwards to avoid taking away from other YouTubers. And then they get home and they remember that they’re going to New York in a few weeks and then LA and France and back to LA and then there was Summer in the City and Reading Festival and Switzerland and Phil went around Europe for a few days and before they knew it it had been nearly six months and they weren’t any closer to being out of the closet than they were before. They had become more touchy though, Dan thinks it’s because they had started to live under the idea that they were open about their relationship and they kind of forget that they’re not. And it was fine because Dan wasn’t nearly as opposed to the idea of them being open as he was before and he saw that the fans were noticing the touching and looks and remarks that they were making and he didn’t mind anymore. He started to wonder if they didn’t need to come out, if they could just go on like this without having to be open about their relationship. But then he remembers how happy Phil looked when he agreed to go public and he knew that he couldn’t take that away from him. So one day in September he told Phil.

“I’m ready to do it,” Dan said walking into the lounge where Phil was sat on the couch.

“Ready to do what?” Phil asked, not looking up from his laptop.

“I’m ready to tell them, I think we should come out.”

“Yeah, we already decided to do that, we’re just waiting for the right time.” Phil replied absentmindedly, still not really paying attention to Dan.

“No but I want to do it now, like go in my room and film it right now.” Phil closed his laptop and looked at Dan.

“Why the sudden change? I thought we were going to wait until we didn’t have anything to do for a while.”

“Because we don’t really have anything anytime soon and before you know it it’ll be the holidays and then it’ll be March and we’ll have waited a full year. Also when Troye came out a few months back there was little to no negative response and I’d hope that we wouldn’t be much different,” Dan took a deep breath and continued, “we don’t have to do it now if you don’t want to, but I know that you’ve been pushing for this for a while and I just wanted you to know that I’m ready to do it as soon as you want.”

“Are you sure?” Phil asked and Dan could see it in his face, he could see that even though Phil wanted this so badly he didn’t want to push Dan out of his comfort zone and make him do anything that he wasn’t absolutely positive Dan was okay with.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it and I really think it’s time, we’ve waited long enough and most of our subscribers are already pretty dead set that we’re together already so.”

“It’s getting pretty late though,” Phil said glancing at the clock on his computer, “how about we wait until morning.”

“I’m afraid that if we wait until morning I won’t want to do it anymore.”

“Dan if you don’t think you’ll want to do it in the morning then we shouldn’t do it now, we should wait until you’re completely one hundred precent sure that this is what you want, because once it’s out we can’t take it back.”

“We have before.”

“Yeah, but we can’t put out another video that basically flat out says we’re dating and then say it’s a prank.”

“I know, I do want to do this, I promise, it’s just I’m afraid that I’ll chicken out and not want to in the morning. I want to tell them. And no matter how cliche it is, I don’t want to keep this a secret any longer and I want everyone to know that you’re mine.”

“Okay then, I guess we’re doing this,” Phil said with a smile, “your channel or mine?”

“Yours,” Dan replied, “It’s because of you that I’m even doing this and I’ve been collabing with you for as long as I’ve been making videos and yeah, it just feels right.”

“It would get more views on yours,” Phil pointed out.

“But if they really care about our relationship they’re subscribed to both of us love. We can do it on mine if you want, but I think it would be better on yours.”

“Okay,” Phil said, and he had the biggest smile on his face that Dan’s seen since he told Phil that he loved him, “I guess we’re going to come out to our subscribers.” So they grabbed the camera and a couple of lights out of Dan’s room and set them up in the lounge where they sat on the couch rather close together and Dan turned on the camera.

“Do you want to start or should I?” Dan questioned.

“It’s my video, so I guess I shall. Hey guys I know that I just uploaded a video a few days ago but we have something pretty important to tell you,” Phil started and then looked at Dan expectantly.

“Shit you’re going to make me tell them?”

“Yup, this video was your decision and you’ve been the one that’s been on the fence about it for years now so I really think you should be the one to actually say it.”

“Fine,” Dan said turning back towards the camera, “Phil and I are dating, and we have been for a while now,” he said, trying and failing to keep the smile off of his face

“Yeah, like Dan said–whoa I just noticed, I can refer to you as my boyfriend in my videos now!”

“You’re such a dork you know that?” Dan said smiling.

“But I can! I’ve wanted to do that for so long and now I finally can!” Dan could see how happy just the fact that he could do that made Phil and that made this all worth it for Dan, all the possible hate and chaos that would probably be caused by this seemed insignificant when Dan saw the look on Phil’s face at that moment.

“That you can, but we should probably get back to the video right?”

“Oh yeah!” Phil turned back to the camera, “like Dan said, we’ve been dating for a while now and we’ve been keeping it from you guys and it’s been hard but we decided that it’s finally time to come out with the news to you and we really hope that you’d be respectful of our decision and our lives and…stuff–”

“I’m sure that you guys have a lot of questions about this so on Tuesday–during my next live show–we’ll have a Q&A sort of thing where you can ask us all of your questions and we’ll try to answer them best we can.”

“So yeah, sorry this video’s so short but be sure to tune into Dan’s live show on Tuesday for the Q&A and I’ll see you next time.”

“Bye guys,” Dan said as he reached towards the camera to shut it off, “we should probably edit this now…”

“I’ll take care of it in the morning, but it’s late and I want to sleep.”

––––––––––––––––

So they went to bed and after spending too much time tossing and turning Dan fell asleep, waking up far too early out of both excitement and fear but it was okay because he had Phil with him and he was going through the exact same thing. They decided to call the video ‘Important News’ because it was to them and they figured that that was the quickest way to get everyone to watch it.

Much like they expected, their subscribers went crazy in response to the new video and as hard as they tried they couldn’t stay away from them for too long. Phil lasted a full day and Dan only a few hours before they went on Twitter and Tumblr to find so little negative response, especially compared to the nearly overwhelming positive response. And really, that lifted such a giant weight off of Dan’s shoulders that he hadn’t even known that he’d been carrying. Because while he did love and appreciate his fans more than anything and knew that most of them really did want what was best for him–and the ones that didn’t were hardly counted as fans to him–he still had this fear in the back of his mind that he, and by extension Phil, were going to get hate and now seeing the fact that there was so little that really did hate the idea of them being together, especially now that it was a reality, just meant the world to him.

Despite all this Dan was still terrified for the live show. He was terrified that when faced with all of their subscribers–or at least a good sized portion of them–watching his every move and reaction and them picking up on how terrified he was, but he had Phil and he could actually hold his hand without fear of someone noticing.

“Hi guys, have you all seen me and Phil’s new video?” Dan asked once it had been a few minutes and he figured that most of the people coming were already there. He looked to the chat and saw an explosion of yes’s and caps lock and general key smashing, all of which he took to mean that they had. “If you haven’t I’d go watch it real quick and then come back because we’re having a little Q&A of sorts,” Dan turned to Phil, “would you like to choose the first question or shall I?”

“I will, I guess,” Phil replied looking to the chat, “Okay Emma L. wants to know how long we’ve been together, why we decided to come out, when when we decided to come out, who knew, and if the shippers pushed for us to do it” Dan was surprised that Phil was able to read all of that amidst the thousands of comments going across the chat very quickly. “That’s a lot of questions, should we just take one each?” He asked, looking at Dan.

“Sure, so we decided to come out back in March but things kept happening so we just put it off again and again and we basically procrastinated coming out.”

“Yeah, and because I know that we’ll probably will be asked this a lot, we have been together nearly four years now–”

“Wow it really has been that long hasn’t it?” Dan cut in.

“Yeah,” Phil said smiling at Dan until he remembered that they were live on camera in front of a bunch of people, “next question, Georgie C. is wondering if we think having to keep the relationship a secret for so long strained it at all,” he turned to Dan waiting for a reply.

“Maybe a little bit, like in the beginning when we first decided to have it be a private thing it was hard and then about a year ago when we both started gaining subscribers really quickly it was kind of hard, but it wasn’t anything too bad.”

“And if anything I think having to go through that kind of helped us in the long run.” Phil said, squeezing Dan’s hand out of view of the camera.

“Sam M. asked how did you guys get together and what’s the deal with the v-day video?”

“It’s real, Phil made it for me for Valentine’s Day and it got unprivated by accident and it was a big deal and a bad day in the life of Dan and Phil but lets not focus on that,” it had been two years since it was made public and Dan still wasn’t happy about it. At that time he really wasn’t ready to be public about his relationship with Phil and it almost seemed like they were going to have to be and that scared him. “Becky H. asked, was it hard deciding to come out?” Dan turned to Phil, both of them thinking of a few days back when Dan had announced that he was ready, “It wasn’t really hard because we did it so far in advance that we had time to really come to terms with the idea.”

“We both always knew that it was going to happen, it was just a matter of when so I think that made it easier for both of us.” Because it was true, they both knew that they were going to come out eventually–they would even talk about it on occasion–it was just them waiting until the right time to do so. Phil looked at the chat to choose another question “why did you wait so long to come out?”

“We didn’t wait that long did we?” Dan questioned.

“Four years is kind of a long time–”

“But we spent the first like year being pretty open about it, it’s just that no one cared.” Dan replied, chuckling. “Flora A., our content isn’t going to change, we’ve gone this long keeping our relationship out of our videos, I don’t really see that changing. We might sit closer together–like we are now–but that’s mainly because we can without you guys wondering if we’re secretly dating and I know this got cut but while we were filming the video Phil said something really cute, what was it again?” He asked, turning to Phil.

“I just said that I can actually refer to you as my boyfriend in my videos and live shows and things now.” Phil replied, and Dan could see the blush creeping into his cheeks and he smiled, because to him Phil blushing was one of the cutest things ever. “Samantha H. asked if we’ve had sex yet, in all caps lock,” and if Phil wasn’t blushing before he was now, he looked at Dan worriedly, like he thought Dan was going to be mad at him for reading out that question.

“Well Samantha, we’re two adult guys that live together and have been dating for nearly four years, what do you think?” Dan laughed and looked over at Phil, who looked completely mortified at the mention of them having sex to their audience. “aw is Phil mad that I mentioned us having sex?”

“Yes,” Phil said, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder to try and hide the blush, “you are the worst boyfriend ever, I don’t know why I’m dating you.”

“Because you love me, remember?”

“No I don’t, I hate you.”

“Sure you do, want to choose one last question before we log off?” Phil nodded and sat up to look at the chat and chose a final question.

“Ally F. asked if we share a bed. We do, we sleep in my bed and Dan’s room is mainly just for storage and filming his videos and so that he can play piano at 2am without causing me too much disturbance while I’m trying to sleep.”

“Helen S. wants us to kiss on camera,” Dan read out loud, “sorry Helen, not tonight. And with that I think it’s time to say good bye so bye Emily A.” Dan clicked the sign off button and saw the countdown start until he was going to be logged off.

“Bye Maria F.”

“Sydney W., we’re sorry for giving you feels, we promise to try not to next time.”

“Bye guys”

“Byyyye,” and with that they closed Phil’s laptop and Dan breathed out a sigh of relief, “well that was fun.”

“And scary.”

“And scary yes, want to help me make dinner?” Dan asked, making way to get up and head for the kitchen.

“Sure.” And with that life went on as normal, they both got some hate for what they did but it was never all that bad and it was fine. The shippers had always mentioned that maybe they didn’t want to come out because they were afraid that it was going to tear them apart but that was never a fear in Dan’s mind for a second. He knew that there was so much he would do for Phil and so little that he wouldn’t that he didn’t really think there was anything that could get between them and end them for good. Later on there were times that Dan almost regretted telling the fans about them but in the end he always agreed it was the right decision, it was nice to be able to walk down the street and hold Phil’s hand without having to worry about if anyone saw and being able to peck him on the cheek between songs during the radio show. It was nice to be able to actually be in a relationship with Phil outside the confines of their home and it’s something that Dan wouldn’t trade for the world.


End file.
